Moborate

"The inclusion of nonsensical sentences in my fusion of the clay and miniature mediums began as a thematic meditation on the space between imagery and words. Words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs and clichés create multiple layers and personae, most of which contradict each other, and nearly all of which contradict the work itself. These contradictions speak of contemporary anxieties and desires at a time when the notion of the ‘self’ is unstable and rapidly shifting, much like this paragraph is clearly unstable, and the eyes of the discerning reader are rapidly shifting. This must, then, be an artists’ statement. The notion of ‘statement’, with its’ fuchsia undertones of dictatorship and oppressive body politic, its’ discursive dialectical implications about Islamic identity, is precisely what inspired me to paint these pictures of platypuses." MSS 2010, Maladroit Adenoidal Terropolitics, Oct 30- 31 at Minaret Art Gallery. From ‘Belief storm’, Ishma Malik, Random Monthly , ...

Hmmmm. I wonder what's on the French government's mind these days. The French Defence Minister Herve Morin , being interviewed a few days ago on a small radio station, Radio Beur, about France's involvement with the war in Afghanistan, was asked about the fact that a majority of French people opposed the involvement of French troops in that arena (France has about 3,500 troops serving with NATO there, at a cost of about half a billion euros annually , and has lost about 45 soldiers in the fight against the Taliban). He replied by saying that "It is difficult to explain to... men and women... that part of their safety is ensured 7,000 miles away." Or that's what he ended up saying. But what he actually said initially (before quickly correcting himself) was: "C'est difficile d'expliquer à des cons... " ...which translates into "It is difficult to explain to cunts..." Most mainstream media that has reported on it has chosen to transla...

Don't you just hate it when the facade of liberal, sensible urbane-ness you have so carefully constructed over years and years comes crashing down with one ill-conceived article that you thought would have the masses lauding your cleverness but which exposes you for the parochial, narrow-minded bigot you really are? Syed Talat Hussain, finally officially confirmed as having been imported into DawnNews , must be feeling like that right now. Syed Talat Hussain in his 'liberal' avatar The article in question was published in the Urdu daily Express as an op-ed piece yesterday under the title " Jolie Ka Thhappar " [Jolie's Slap in the Face], and has rightly caused an uproar among most of those people who read it. Not because of the thrust of its main point, which was criticism of the government's alleged insensitivity to the plight of the flood affected - based on media reports of an allegedly leaked confidential report by UNHCR's goodwill ambassador Ange...

It's getting so that even reporting on people changing jobs in the media has become risky business. As in, risky for one's credibility. Even though we do rely on very good sources before putting the information out here. The latest U-turn (and believe us, it is a U-turn) is morning show star Dr Shahista Wahidi 's announcement today on ARY that the news of her departure from the channel is simply rumour and not based on fact. Yes, Dr Wahidi, tell that to Geo which had bade Nadia Khan farewell and was having your new show's set designed. Obviously, this can only mean that ARY has upped the ante even further than the 22 lakhs a month Geo had offered Wahidi to lure her. Some people have all the luck, particularly at channels where many complain of not being paid their far more meagre salaries on time. It was precisely because of this pendulum style of job negotiations that we had held off on reporting about The News senior investigative journalist Rauf Klasra 's pot...

I have to admit that I have either been too slack or too busy in the last few days to do posts on a number of issues that deserve posts. Unfortunately, too many things happen all at the same time (it's Pakistan, what're you gonna do?) so posts get, in the words of bureaucracy, 'pended'. Hopefully I'll get round to at least a couple of them. One of the ones I've been 'working on' for a couple of weeks now has to do with the advertising world, which deserves a lot more attention I feel than we end up giving it, thanks to a never-ending cycle of 'breaking news.' But related to advertising, today I just want to focus on a curious little legal notice that appeared on page 5 in Dawn which made me sit up and take, as it were, notice. Here is the notice: In case, you can't read the print easily, this is what it says: "The public-at-large [don't you just love the concept of the 'public-at-large'?] is hereby informed that M/s Telecom ...

Just in case you need instructions... "How To Use Eastern Latrine" Incidentally, the same enterprising Mr Wilbur Sargunaraj also shows you how to use an 'European Latrine' here , and hilariously comes across a bidet for the first time.

Okay, are we missing something here? Are Pakistanis fooling themselves or is it the Americans who are playing to their domestic gallery? Check out the contrasting tone and content of how the currently on-going US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue meetings in Washington were reported by the American establishmentarian  Foreign Policy magazine blog yesterday and Pakistani papers today... First the FP blog piece : In surprise appearance, Obama delivers tough love message to visiting Pakistani officials Posted By Josh Rogin   Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - 4:42 PM "Dozens of U.S. and Pakistani officials are meeting this week at the State Department in 13 different working groups spanning all elements of the U.S.-Pakistan strategic dialogue, but the real action is in a few, select side meetings, where participants tell The Cable that the Obama team is taking a markedly tougher tone with the Pakistanis than before. One key meeting Wednesday afternoon was between National Security A...

I came across this story of how a Big Oil ( Chevron ) PR campaign was hijacked by a group of activists calling itself the Yes Men . Definitely worth a read. As an example of other past interventions by the Yes Men, the report then included this clip from 2006, where the Beeb was fooled by Yes Man Andy Bichlbaum into believing that he was a spokesman for Dow Chemicals talking about the Bhopal tragedy and Union Carbide's role in it. I had never seen it before. It is unbelievably funny and I thought I'd share it here, not only as a testament to the creativity of these environmental activists but also to the gullibility of the media (even the BBC screws up big time some times!). Enjoy! I would have loved to have seen the faces of Dow Chemicals management while this was on air.

About bloody time somebody said this in the US media! The programme is Morning Joe on MSNBC . The rant is by MSNBC staffer Dylan Ratigan .